PART I




Chapter I


Grandfather had been sitting in his old arm-chair, all that pleasant
afternoon, while the children were pursuing their various sports, far off
or near at hand. Sometimes you would have said, "Grandfather is asleep;"
but still, even when his eyes were closed, his thoughts were with the
young people, playing among the flowers and shrubbery of the garden.

He heard the voice of Laurence, who had taken possession of a heap of
decayed branches which the gardener had lopped from the fruit trees, and
was building a little hut for his cousin Clara and himself. He heard
Clara’s gladsome voice, too, as she weeded and watered the flower-bed
which had been given her for her own. He could have counted every footstep
that Charley took, as he trundled his wheelbarrow along the gravel walk.
And though Grandfather was old and gray-haired, yet his heart leaped with
joy whenever little Alice came fluttering, like a butterfly, into the
room. She had made each of the children her playmate in turn, and now made
Grandfather her playmate too, and thought him the merriest of them all.

At last the children grew weary of their sports; because a summer
afternoon is like a long lifetime to the young. So they came into the room
together, and clustered round Grandfather’s great chair. Little Alice, who
was hardly five years old, took the privilege of the youngest, and climbed